1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Some Useful Data

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Rippon, Aug 7, 2015.

  1. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2005
    Messages:
    19,715
    Likes Received:
    585
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I will cite brief extracts from Stanley E. Porter's ; How We Got The New Testament Text, Transmission, Translation

    "The vast majority of [papyri] from Egypt have been discovered at the ancient site of Oxyrhynchus: roughly 40 percent of the total number of New Testament papyri, and nearly 60 percent of those that date from before the third/fourth centuries." (p.23)

    "...62.9 percent of the verses of the Greek New Testament show no variants. The individual books range from a low of 45.1 percent of verses with no variants (in Mark) to a high of 81.4 percent of verses with no variants (in 1 Timothy)." (p.24)

    "...the vast majority of the 5,813 today extant Greek New Testament manuscripts follow the Byzantine text --in fact, it may be as many as 95 percent." (p56)

    "We now have around 322 majuscule manuscripts on parchment, only a few of which have the complete New Testament." (p.83)

    "There are nearly three thousand minuscule manuscripts (2911 at last count.)" (p.83)

    "Instead, Erasmus used a number of manuscripts that followed the Byzantine text-type: Minuscule 2, a twelfth-century manuscript of the Gospels; Minuscule 2ap (now 2815), a twelfth-century manuscript with the Pauline Epistles and Acts; and Minuscule Ir (now 2814), a damaged and incomplete twelfth-century manuscript of Revelation. One can only wonder how the entire controversy over the Textus Receptus, and especially dispute over certain passages, would have been different if Erasmus had chosen Minuscule 1."(p.139)
     
  2. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2012
    Messages:
    52,624
    Likes Received:
    2,742
    Faith:
    Baptist
    So a majority of the valued texts and varients all were said to be existing by time of 4th century then?
     
  3. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2004
    Messages:
    6,204
    Likes Received:
    405
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Concerning manuscript 1’ [min. 2814], Robert Waltz wrote: “Noteworthy primarily as the single Greek manuscript used by Erasmus to prepare the Apocalypse of his 1516 New Testament” (Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism, p. 1037). Isbon Beckwith wrote: “Cursive no. 1, of the 12th or 13th century containing the Apocalypse, with the commentary of Andreas, is of particular interest, since it was the only Greek Ms. which Erasmus had for the Apocalypse in his first edition of the Greek Testament (1516)“ (Apocalypse of John, p. 412). John David Michaelis as translated by Herbert Marsh noted: “Erasmus relates in his defence adversus Stunicam, that he used only one single manuscript of the Revelation for his edition of the New Testament” (Introduction to the NT, Vol. II, p. 312). Thomas Holland wrote: “The manuscript Codex 1r used by Desiderius Erasmus in the production of his Greek New Testament is missing the last six verses of Revelation chapter twenty-two” (Crowned With Glory, p. 168). This manuscript is one of two to four dozen of the book of Revelation that include the commentary of Andreas of Caesarea in Cappadocia.

    The Greek text of this manuscript is sometimes described as the “Andreas text” because the manuscripts with Andreas’s commentary have some readings said to characterize or distinguish them from purely Byzantine Greek manuscripts. In a new translation and his commentary on the book of Revelation, Craig Koester distinguished between the text used in the commentary by Andreas and the Byzantine text (p. 149). Josef Schmid classified the Andreas text as one of the four main text types or families of text for the Apocalypse. Edward Hutton identified “the Andreas text with the great Western family” (Atlas of Textual Criticism, p. 47).

    At times in this worn manuscript of the book of Revelation used by Erasmus and his copyist, it has been said that it was difficult to distinguish the commentary from the text. Henry Alford observed: “The text in the MS. is mixed up with the commentary of Andreas” (Greek Testament, Vol. 4, p. 263, footnote 8). In this manuscript, Thomas J. Conant noted: “The text and commentary alternate, without any break in the line” (Baptist Quarterly, April, 1870, p. 135). James R. White suggested that Erasmus “had an unknown copyist make a fresh copy and returned the original to Reuchlin” (King James Only, second edition, p. 91). Although some errors made by that copyist in his copying may have been corrected in later printed editions, W. Edward Glenny maintained that “the copyist made several errors that are still found in the TR text published today” (Beacham, One Bible Only, p. 82). In an edition of the KJV with commentary as edited by F. C. Cook and printed in 1881, William Lee in his introduction to the book of Revelation asserted “the sacred text is here mixed up with the commentary of Andreas,” and he noted: “Owing to this cause, Erasmus omitted, from his first three editions, chapter 21:26” (Vol. IV, p. 462). At Revelation 21:24, William Lee claimed that “the copyist has imported into the text the words of the commentary, viz. ’of them which are saved’” (Ibid.). Thomas J. Conant maintained that the words “of them which are saved” (Rev. 21:24) “rests solely on a mistake by the transcriber, who confounded the commentary of Andreas with the words of the sacred writer” (Baptist Quarterly, Vol. IV, April, 1870, p. 136). Conant suggested that “the transcriber accidentally misplaced the signs for the commencement of the text and of the commentary (as other copies of the commentary show), and thus included in the text the words, ‘of them that are saved,‘ which belong to the commentary on the preceding verse” (pp. 135-136). In the book of Revelation, Robert Waltz asserted that the Textus Receptus has “a handful” of readings “derived from the [Andreas] commentary itself” (Encyclopedia, p. 438). John Nordstrom maintained that Erasmus acknowledged in his annotations that he had translated the last six verses of Revelation 22 from the Latin Vulgate, but that the printer did not choose to print that note in the printed edition. Nordstrom asserted: “This omission can be verified by placing side-by-side Erasmus’ hand-copied notes with the actual printed copy” (Strained by Blood, p. 74). Jan Krans claimed that Erasmus wrote in his annotation on Revelation 22:20 the following as translated into English: “However, at the end of this book, I found some words in our versions which were lacking in the Greek copies, but we added them from the Latin” (Beyond What is Written, p. 55-56, footnote 11). Krans noted that Erasmus later “ordered the proofreaders of his second edition to supply the final words of Revelation from the Aldine edition of the Greek Bible” (p. 57). Krans suggested that “it seems Erasmus never realized that the text of the New Testament in the Aldine edition is derived from his own first edition” (p. 57, footnote 16).
     
  4. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2005
    Messages:
    19,715
    Likes Received:
    585
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Regarding Minuscule 1,..."was one of the manuscripts that Erasmus had but did not widely use in creating his text of the Greek New Testament...The text of this manuscript is distinct from the Byzantine text-type that Erasmus ended up following...If Erasmus had chosen to follow this manuscript,...there would have been some notable differences from the text he created...For example...the long ending of Mark 16:9-20 perhaps would have been marked as being omitted in some manuscripts;Luke 1:28 with 'blessed are you among women' would have been omitted, as it is in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus; the shorter form of the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:2-4) would have been read; and the pericope of the woman caught in adultery would have been found at the end of John's Gospel rather than at John 7:53...One can only wonder how the entire controversy over the Textus Receptus, and especially dispute over certain passages, would have been different if Erasmus had chosen Minuscule 1." (p.139)
     
Loading...